


After the Fall

by Xyriath



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, Not porn, Post-Canon, if you ignore the big edwin hints in canon, mostly canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 18:42:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5795665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xyriath/pseuds/Xyriath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re home.</p><p>They haven’t been, not since that day in October, but the battle is over, and things can go back to normal.</p><p>Only, she has no idea what normal is anymore, and every time she looks at Al in his new body, hears his new voice, she thinks she might need to be reworking her definition, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Fall

Winry has been, as Edward Elric would put it, through some goddamn shit.

She has known terror, the terror of being left alone in the world, of seeing two of the three most important people to her in the world bleeding and broken, ripped from their bodies. Of countless tales of their brushes with death. Of her _own_ death, choking and suffocating on some unknown force that she couldn’t fight.

That didn’t even _begin_ to cover Briggs.

And it doesn’t end with a call, not even a tired, triumphant one, with an exhausted but happy Edward and a hoarse Alphonse talking over each other to recount their victory. She can’t even bring herself to listen, not completely, because she still doesn’t have them _back_ , and she knows it’ll be far, far too long before she does.

Waiting is something she’s had to learn to do and something she’s never going to do again once she finishes; it’s going to be the three of them and she won’t accept anything less.

She does fill the time, of course. She wonders how long is long enough before she can berate them (insincerely, of course) for being _too_ long, what sort of damage Ed has done to his automail _now_ , what Al looks like—

What _Al_ looks like. She hasn’t seen him since—

“It tickles!”

And her heart freezes.

It’s for more reasons than she can count. That voice, familiar enough to be recognizable but so different— _deeper_. The knowledge that it’ll only be a few more moments before she sees the two of them. And— _it tickles_. Al’s delighted voice, the sudden realization that he _could be tickled_ —

It’s too much all at once, and she throws herself outside and at them, reveling in the reunion.

_“We’re home!”_

They are, finally, and there’s so much to see, so much to talk about, so much to _feel_. And it’s a few minutes before she realizes that she’s holding Al’s face, taking him in, running her hands over him to make sure that he’s _real_ as he laughs delightedly, then takes her wrists, tugging them away, and wrapping his arms around her to pull her in close.

And as she rests her cheek against his chest, she thinks, _You are home. And now I’m home, too._

—

She had thought that it would be an easy, eager adjustment, having them both back and functioning. She had _planned_ things. As soon as he’s settled, she piles him with pillows and blankets, only the softest she could find, assisted in her search by a myriad of people, including Mrs. Hughes, Al’s Xingese friends, and even Havoc’s General Store, which Winry had been delighted to find offered hand-knitted goods as well.

She stuffs him with homemade food: apple and pear pies, stews and cakes and roast dishes that they swear are better than what the Fuhrer himself eats. She throws a washcloth at them for lying, and they all laugh.

So it’s not that her plans go awry, really, it’s just that…

She hadn’t been expecting Al to be so… _grown up._

Every time she hears him speak, it’s a little, oddly-thrilling jolt, always somewhere in her chest or her stomach or anywhere in between. She’s grown so used to the voice in the armor; Ed’s voice change was at least gradual, but Al’s has been so sudden that that she really doesn’t know what to do with it, or with the fact that it suddenly makes her… shivery, a little.

And it’s… unsettling, though she can’t say that’s a bad thing, to turn around in her own house and see an unfamiliar form and thing, _Who in the world is that handsome stranger?_

And sometimes she feels a bit silly, for thinking back to the cheap, melodramatic romance novels she had occasionally indulged in, but there isn’t anything wrong with sometimes wanting to be a heroine, is there?

Like the voice change, her reaction to his appearance has to do with the suddenness, she tells herself. Goodness knew that Ed is aesthetically attractive enough, but she had _seen_ him grow older, and with the gradualness, he has never really shaken that obnoxious ten year old expression from his face. And she does have to admit it’s a tad ironic, that she can’t think of Ed as anything but “little brother,” but as for Ed’s little brother…

Well, there’s just so _much_ of him, and absolutely none of it is little brother material.

Because little brothers don’t leave you breathless when you catch them doing their required physical training.

She’s known him his entire life, yes, and he isn’t different, not really, but she feels as if she’s rediscovering something that’s been there all along when they talk, something she never realized existed but it did, it very much did. It’s amazing, the difference that realizing he’s not ten anymore can do. What would have once been a childish tease is now a devastatingly witty retort; a playful tug on her hair turns into a soft caress, tucking a lock behind her ear.

He’s just as brilliant, and warmhearted, and funny, and passionate as before, but something has shifted, and she’s not sure it will ever go back to how it was before. She’s not sure she wants it to.

And when he looks at her, she’s the center of his universe.

—

It’s one night some time in the thick of winter when Winry is woken obscenely late by the phone ringing.

She stumbles out of bed, hunching in her shoulders and wholeheartedly hating the person who dragged her from her warm, toasty nest of blankets [that Al should totally be in with her] to force her and her toes to such extreme conditions. But business is business, and if it were an emergency…

God, she can hope that it’s not an emergency, right? Not just that she hopes no one in _that_ dire of a strait, but she really doesn’t want to fully wake up right about now.

“Llo?” she mumbles before she even fully realizes that the phone is at her ear. “Rockbell… mechanics…”

“Win?”

… _That_ goes quite a ways into waking her up. “Ed? Why are you _calling_ this late?”

“This—oh, _fuck_ , sorry Win, I didn’t realize—shit. I just wanted to let you know we wouldn’t be home.”

“…Huh?”

“Me’n Pinako? We’re not gonna be able to make it home tonight, for obvious reasons. Well, I guess that’s obvious now, so just don’t panic when we’re not there tomorrow morning. We’ll see how long it takes to clear up, but it could be a few days.”

“Yeahsureanythingelse?” God, she just wants to _sleep._

“Go back to bed, Win,” Ed laughs. _Laughs._ She’ll kick his butt when he gets back.

When he keeps laughing, she slams the phone down and stumbles back to bed. Good riddance.

Somewhere in the vicinity of six to eight hours later, however, she sits bolt upright to a cry of, “Winry!”

It doesn’t take very long for her to realize that it’s a cry of delight, of course, and she stumbles out yet again, but she can’t bring herself to be as bitter about the frostbitten toes this time, not when she walks into the living room to see Al’s expression of utter rapture as he stares at the snowflakes falling onto the already deep layer of white on the ground.

“It’s snowing! It’s—I can’t believe—can we go out—but brother isn’t home yet, or—you’re grinning.” Al breaks off with a startled look at her and a small flush, and she realizes that the ache in her cheeks are, indeed, a warm grin cracking the frozen wastelands of her bare skin.

“Y-yeah,” she yawns. “He called last night. They’re… staying in town. Guess they got snowed in.” That certainly explains a lot, she thinks as she rubs her eyes. “Hey, lemme get dressed, and I’ll get you the winter clothes, and we can go out, okay?”

With the way Al’s eyes sparkle as he nods, he might as well be a kid again.

—

Yes, Winry thinks with satisfaction as she watches Al finish bundling himself up, tossing the scarf around his neck. I have chosen well. Cats smile at her from every knitted surface, including the hat, which has the added bonus of two knitted ears that stick up beyond the top. Havoc had done well. _She_ had done well, with the request, and Al—well, Al is probably doing the best of them all, because she doesn’t think she’s ever seen anyone happier than he is right now.

He tugs on his mittens, also complete with a cat pattern and ears, and throws open the door, dashing out into the pristine white.

She follows, laughing, and watches him tramp around for several moments, delight on every inch of his face. So, of course, she can’t resist bending over, scooping up a ball of snow, and pitching it in his direction.

His laugh turns into a shriek as it connects right at the spot on the side of his head where his ear is uncovered by his hat and scarf.

“You—I’ll get you for that!”

Of course, his aim isn’t _quite_ as good as hers—wrenches are much harder to throw than snowballs, after all—so his (mostly) empty threats result in a lot of scooped snow with not much to show for his effort. Unfortunately for Winry, he has gotten quite fast on his feet, and decides to rectify the aim problem by stomping over, scooping her up, and leaping, sending them both tumbling into a snow drift as Winry shrieks with indignation.

The snow leaks in through the tiny cracks in her winter clothing, chilling her neck and face and wrists as she calls Al all sorts of childish names between her laughter. He’s laughing too hard to respond, but his arms are wrapped around her, solid and warm, and though she struggles halfheartedly to get out, she can’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be.

…At least, until Al rolls on top of her, pinning her to the ground, surrounded by walls of white, and lifts up a giant pile of snow to hold it above her head.

She shrieks again, eyes wide with horror and laughter, and punches upwards. She succeeds in keeping the mass from getting dropped on her head, at least, but it has to go _somewhere._ The freezing white powder drifts down around them, leaving white specks on their hats and shoulders and faces, getting stuck in their noses and mouths as they inhaled to laugh harder.

Al’s lost a mitten in the struggle, and he’s staring at the hand, scooping up the snow like he can’t care less about his fingers freezing, and running it through them. The delight on his face is so pure, so unfettered, that it both breaks Winry’s heart and makes it more whole than it’s ever been.

She reaches up unconsciously to grab his scarf and tug him down, not quite sure what she’s about to do. Al, it seems, interprets this as another attempt at a snow attack, because he laughs and grabs her wrists, pushing them to the side and leaning down to get them out of the way.

_Oh._

Their faces are scant inches apart, and Al’s eyes look to be as wide as hers feel. And it’s not the only similarity: she can see the flush on his face as surely as she can feel it on hers, and she knows they’ve crossed a threshold, and that there isn’t any coming back from that.

And, she realizes, she’s all right with that.

She tilts her chin up a little, swallowing—she’s nervous, but more excited, and lifts her head some, eyes starting to close as Al leans in—

But he turns his head away.

And then the pressure is gone, leaving her chilly with the sudden absence of Al’s warmth as he pushes himself to his feet. “I—sorry. I’m… it’s getting cold. I’m going to go inside.”

She pushes herself up as well, though it’s much more slowly, and she stands there, chilled and bereft, watching Al make his way back into the house.

—

“Talk to me, Al.”

He isn’t even _looking_ at her, just stoking the fire, and it makes her irrationally angry for a couple of moments before she takes a deep breath.

“I’m not sure what you want me to say.” His voice is quiet, attempting to be confident but unsure, and that deflates the rest of her anger.

“Al, I—“

“I can’t.”

The fact that Al has interrupted her, more than anything else, is what keeps her from continuing. Al _never_ interrupts, not her.

“I’m sorry. I just—“ Al turns, and she wants to run over to him, to hold him until that look is gone from his eyes. “I know that you and… and brother…”

Winry’s automatic response is to laugh in disbelief, but when she sees the hurt expression on Al’s face, she claps her hands over her mouth.

“Oh—Al, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—I’m not laughing at you, I swear. Just… _Ed?_ No, no no no, never.” She shakes her head vigorously, wishing that she could express everything she’s feeling right now, to reassure Al. “That’s not—he’s like a brother to me, in a way you… you aren’t. That’s _all_ I see him as. So… even if he _were_ interested in me, and I’m pretty sure I’m not his type anyway, that just… he’s not someone I’d ever be interested in.”

“Not… his type? But how could you not be someone’s type?”

Oh. Well _that…_ Winry pinches the bridge of her nose a little, debating, then simply decides to go for it. “I don’t think Edward is very much interested in girls at all, actually.”

Al stands there for a few moments, staring. Then his eyes widen, and Winry can practically _see_ the images running past, like a film, as he revisits his memories of Ed with… well, plenty of people, from recent interactions with his male peers back through when Ed and Tom used to get into silly arguments in primary school.

“Oh.”

Winry steps forward, more confidently now. “I hope that ‘oh’ means what I think it means.”

Al’s smile, slow and shy and sweet, _melts_ her insides, and she wants to take it and treasure it, keep it close to her heart, and still see him do it over, and over, and over again.

She steps forward again, and Al reaches out to her this time, tugging her in and settling his arms hesitantly around her waist. She’s a little more certain—she’s done this before, and she suddenly realizes that Al hasn’t, hasn’t done this with _anyone_ —and she lifts her arms to settle her hands on his shoulders.

He’s still nervous, she can see it, and she can’t blame him, either; she probably looks the same. But he isn’t going to pull away, not this time, and she can tell.

And with the fire crackling gently behind them, their faces drew together until their lips met.

She can tell that Al hasn’t done this before, but he’s still gentle and sweet about it—and careful, too. A bit too careful, and before he pulls away, she coaxes him into deepening the kiss, just a little bit, until he means it.

When they finally do pull away, faces flushed and grinning, she can’t stop running her hands down his chest, up his shoulders, brushing her fingers across his face.

“Wow,” Al breathes, and with another laugh, Winry pulls him down once again.

—

Al is a fast learner, and with another call from Ed confirming that they won’t be home that day, and possibly for more, Winry is quite happy to teach him from what knowledge, albeit limited knowledge, that she has. And what they don’t know, of course, she’s even happier to discover together.

It barely takes him a few hours—with snack breaks, of course—to go from knowing nothing to knowing quite enough for Winry’s standards. Not that she’s done this much more than he has.

They combine their blankets and pile them in front of the fire, curling up together, and Winry flushes when she wonders if Al might be a useful way to keep warm at night from now on. He’s something of a furnace, after all.

Though kisses aren’t the _only_ thing they get up to, of course, they intersperse most of the day, a thrilling novelty that Winry doesn’t think she’ll ever tire of, snuck in when making meals and tweaking automail and when she stretches out over his lap as he reads. (She discovers, to her quiet delight, that he has a _very_ nice set of abdominal muscles.) They warm her up when she returns in from getting firewood in the cold, and she returns the favor.

As the evening goes on, they return to their nest of blankets; it’s funny, really, how charming watching Al curl up in them is. Not that she can blame him; after not being able to feel _anything_ for years, she’s surprised he even lets go at all.

Chaste kisses deepen, and hands wander; Winry is pleased to see that she wasn’t at all wrong about Al’s muscles, and she places her mouth over them and watches him shiver as her hair ghosts over his chest.

And then it’s his turn, as she falls back with a grin, his large hands running over her arms, to shiver as he grips the hem of her shirt and tugs it up. He coaxes her into raising her arms as he peels it off slowly, baring her breasts to the flickering firelight. She briefly hopes that the orange hides her blush, though she’s not sure if it’s at being exposed like this or the way that he looks down at her, as if she’s some… some treasure greater than anything alchemy could ever give him.

When he seems to have gotten his fill for the moment, he lowers his head to mouth at her neck. She gasps, reaching up to run her fingers through his hair—it’s soft, too, softer than she would have expected—and makes a soft, encouraging noise. She’s really not sure what she had intended for… for any of this, but with a sudden certainty, she realizes that she wants to see it through to whatever end it might be.

Al mouths down lower, down to her collarbone and upper chest, and then stops. She can feel the hesitation as he starts to lift his head, but she runs her hand up his back. “Keep going,” she gasps.

Al obliges. His tongue flicks out, tracing down her chest, and he nips slightly at the curve of her breast. _That_ has her gasping again, arching her back in surprise, the little flare of pain nothing compared to the warmth spreading down her chest, and not just from Al’s body heat.

He seems to take the encouragement and he licks down slowly, the warmth of his mouth and tongue doing _wonderful_ things that she had only ever thought about, and before she completely realizes what’s happening, her leg is hooked around his waist, tugging him down further as she runs her fingers up through the back of his hair.

He seems to take this as an invitation to grind down against her, and she realizes suddenly—he’s holding himself back. He’s gone so long in a body that’s able to hurt so easily, and he’s still worried he might hurt her now.

In response to that, she lifts her other leg, wrapping it as well, and pulls him down firmly.

He takes the hint, and though not much happens for a while beyond wandering hands and mouths and slow, half-clothed grinding, it’s wonderful and Winry can’t believe she’s been missing out on this, and missing out on it with _him._ Her mind is screaming for more but her mouth can’t do anything but moan and gasp out half-thought out requests, and he doesn’t seem to be doing any better.

Half-clothed turns into unclothed, and Winry will never forget the rapturous look on Al’s face as he glances up at her for permission, sliding the rest of it off and leaving her naked. Nor will she forget the kiss on her abdomen, then his mouth ghosting down to her thighs, and when she babbles a question asking him _do you know what you’re doing?_ his answer of _I’ve read about this; I think I can do it!_ shouldn’t excite her as much as it does, but she hooks her thighs around his bare shoulders wanting nothing else more in the world right at that moment.

And it’s fumbling and a little awkward and he’s not _quite_ sure what goes where, but it still feels nice and she _laughs_ , something she never had expected to do when she finally got around to this sort of thing with another person, and he laughs with her. His eagerness and her instruction go a long way as he licks slowly, and the way he moans at the taste leaves her gasping as much as the action itself, or the way his fingers—and it’s never really hit her how _large_ those fingers were until now—slide inside.

And though she could do this for hours—and Al seems perfectly willing to as well—she eventually urges him up, tugs him gently, and she can see that he’s been completely neglecting himself while seeing to _her_ pleasure. And god, she wants this, so badly, every nerve in her _screaming_ for it, and when she meets his eyes, she knows that he can see it, because his hesitation melts away to be filled with absolute, raw _want._

It’s less pain and more of a slightly uncomfortable stretch when he pushes inside her, and she gasps and grips his shoulders as he kisses her forehead gently, murmuring, “Are you all right? I’m not hurting you, am I?”

She shakes her head vigorously, not trusting herself to speak, but she squeezes with her thighs, urging him on, and as he starts to move, she closes her eyes and tilts her head back.

It’s something she’ll have to get used to, she thinks wildly; it really _is_ different with someone else. The intimacy is wonderful, of course, as are the long, slow kisses they press to each other’s mouths with their chests flush together.

It’s a slow-building pleasure, forming from what his mouth had done earlier, and it doesn’t all quite come together before he gasps, arching into her, and it’s not quite the explosive blooming of ecstasy that she’s read about and her romance heroines seem to be so fond of. But it’s a thrill, knowing that he’s found his own inside of her, and she’s certainly no stranger to finishing it herself—

But then he pulls out, panting from his release—that’s still inside her, she thinks—and she doesn’t have time to move before his fingers and mouth are there again, thrusting, licking, curling, and either he’s even faster of a learner than she thought or she’s so worked up that it doesn’t matter anymore, because her breath leaves her lungs and she writhes underneath him as he moans against her and her nails dig into the blankets and eventually, with something that could only be called a shriek, she learns _exactly_ what that explosive blooming pleasure of ecstasy is for herself.

And when it’s finally done, their first time together, they lay together, Al pressed against her back, the fire behind them, watching the snow fall in flakes through the window to the outside.

He settles his chin against the top of Winry’s head, and she burrows back into him. Though the lazy silence is nice and she doesn’t want to break it with too much chatter, she can’t resist a bit, not after she kisses his knuckles while he’s gently stroking his finger down her cheek.

“I’m so glad you’re home,” she murmurs, and the words don’t do everything she’s feeling justice, not by a long shot, but Al seems to understand, with the way he kisses the top of her head.

“I’m glad, too.”

—

The next day Ed and Pinako return. Everything that can returns to normal, and everything that’s changed stays different. Winry isn’t sure how she could be happier.

Ed remains as oblivious as ever, but Pinako takes one look at the rumpled blanket they _somehow_ missed and says, “I hope you two washed the sheets properly.”

Winry feels her face light on _fire,_ and her mouth drops open in horror. “Granny!”

“What?” Pinako nudges at the blanket with her toe. “Though I have to say, at least you picked the sensible brother.”

“It isn’t—that’s not—that has nothing to do with—!” Winry stops her attempts at babbled excuses and snatches up the last blanket.

“Well, was he any good, at least?”

“ _Granny!_ ”

“I suppose that’s a yes—he must take after his father, then—“

With a shriek of disgust, Winry storms out. It’s a good thing, too, because she hears Al asking what’s wrong, and then comes the question about protection—

Oh, she’s so _very_ glad that she’s left the room.

(Though she supposes it could be worse; the expression on Ed’s face a few days later, when he bursts into her room without knocking to get a _very_ intimate eyeful of Winry on top of Al, is one of such a level of horror she isn’t sure she’ll ever be able to reach.)

(Still, after that and a wrench through the wood two inches to the right of his head, she’s pretty sure he’s finally learned his lesson about knocking.)


End file.
